Puerto Vallarta (PVDN) – With upcoming elections in Mexico, Google has activated a series of services to fight against misinformation that seeks to have Mexicans better informed.
This initiative involves training for newsrooms, discussions about platforms such as YouTube to learn how to protect their digital properties, new features such as a new menu in the Google search engine that includes information on who generated that content, and services such as Google News Showcase, available from today in desktop and mobile version, the same for Android as for iOS.
Google News Showcase is a content curation and licensing program; This project was announced in June 2022, the date on which negotiations began in this country with the media. As of the day of the launch, there are 83 publications, 35 publishers, and more than 10 native, local, and independent digital media, with a presence in 29 states of the Republic. However, this launch is just the beginning and it is expected to add more local sources to cover the entire country.
Through this program, the media receive a fixed monthly fee for their articles and, in the case of having a paid version, readers will be able to access that information through Google News, while the media obtain economic compensation for it. Andrea Fornes, in charge of this new product, mentioned that “Showcase arrives in Mexico at a very important moment, to support and reinforce the work of quality journalism and combat misinformation.”
It’s important to emphasize that news curation is entirely on the media’s side, and that Google only provides the platform and training.
Google News Initiative
As part of its Google News Initiative program, created globally five years ago, joint work is carried out in Mexico and Latin America that covers different pillars such as training for journalists and business areas, mentoring, as well as tools for newsrooms, among others.
Additionally, they are working on the creation of the Latin American network of “Fact-Checking” trainers, for data verification, and they plan to train 300 students from Mexican universities, who will add to the 250 already trained in 2022. Google’s goal is to train 500 new fact-checkers in the region to continue fighting disinformation.
This publication, PVDN, has been part of the Google News Initiative for the past three year.
